crossroads

[heartinlove]

I don't believe waiting around for a man to choose between two women to be a very good idea. It's not a very kind thing to do to yourself and it will surely shred your self esteem. Being involved with a man who is anything less than 100% IN really should be a dealbreaker and there should be no doubt whatsoever that you are THE ONE. Not the one he "picked" in some half-assed her or her comparison.

 

You deserve better than this.

 

I posted this as an answer to another question but I'll repost it here. I think its helpful for other women in this position.

 

Everyone keeps speaking about the choice as if its a choice between one woman versus the other woman. This IS NOT what the heart of the issue is.

 

If you break it down into me versus her, of course, who wants to hang out to see who is chosen. The issue is between being with me or his family, meaning the family structure he has created with his children where he lives with them full time and they have mom and dad in the same house. The issue is does he do his best to repair that marriage or hang in a marriage where he is not in love with his wife in order to keep his family together for his children or does he choose who he is in love with.

 

On an emotional level he has already chosen me. The flooding of emotions of guilt, shame, not being a good man, not being a good husband or father that happens to men in this situation is profound. The loss of who you thought you were. That is what is happening to MM. No matter how much love he has for me, he may never work through those emotions and feel he is entitled to choose love. His choosing to love me has caused immense pain to a wife he once was in love with who now knows all about me. This is hard to be with and forgive himself for. This is not a simple choice of which woman to be with.

[fellhard4u]

I posted this as an answer to another question but I'll repost it here. I think its helpful for other women in this position.

 

Everyone keeps speaking about the choice as if its a choice between one woman versus the other woman. This IS NOT what the heart of the issue is.

 

If you break it down into me versus her, of course, who wants to hang out to see who is chosen. The issue is between being with me or his family, meaning the family structure he has created with his children where he lives with them full time and they have mom and dad in the same house. The issue is does he do his best to repair that marriage or hang in a marriage where he is not in love with his wife in order to keep his family together for his children or does he choose who he is in love with.

 

On an emotional level he has already chosen me. The flooding of emotions of guilt, shame, not being a good man, not being a good husband or father that happens to men in this situation is profound. The loss of who you thought you were. That is what is happening to MM. No matter how much love he has for me, he may never work through those emotions and feel he is entitled to choose love. His choosing to love me has caused immense pain to a wife he once was in love with who now knows all about me. This is hard to be with and forgive himself for. This is not a simple choice of which woman to be with.

 

Heart, I read your response when you posted it in the other thread and I have to say that it helped relieve the pain a tiny bit of the emotional devastation left by the A and post-A situation.

 

A very good male friend had already told me about the impossible dilemma that MM are faced with when they have deep feelings for the OW. The passage in bolded from your post, is basically what my male friend told me as well.

 

In one of the last conversations that I had with xMM before the big blow-up last May, I told him that I believed that he never got over the trauma of his first divorce and of the consequences of the divorce on his kids, his xW and on himself (extreme guilt).

According to him, no one else in his life "understood" him like I did and no one had ever talked to him about this issue. He said that he was touched by it.

[heartinlove]

Heart, I read your response when you posted it in the other thread and I have to say that it helped relieve the pain a tiny bit of the emotional devastation left by the A and post-A situation.

 

A very good male friend had already told me about the impossible dilemma that MM are faced with when they have deep feelings for the OW. The passage in bolded from your post, is basically what my male friend told me as well.

 

In one of the last conversations that I had with xMM before the big blow-up last May, I told him that I believed that he never got over the trauma of his first divorce and of the consequences of the divorce on his kids, his xW and on himself (extreme guilt).

According to him, no one else in his life "understood" him like I did and no one had ever talked to him about this issue. He said that he was touched by it.

 

Im glad it helped. It really is true. I am NC now but before we disconnected I saw a man heartbroken over the pain he caused. Absolutely crushed. If I never see him again and he chooses to stay in his marriage, I know completely that he loved and loves me.

 

I think too many OW's spend too much time asking if they were loved if they were let go of in the end of the affair. I keep seeing time and again the sentences of people stay where they want or the kids is a classic MM excuse. The reason so many MM say this, is because it is a very real situation with peoples real children. Also, many people stay in marriages for children. Yes many people divorce, but you're not adding on an affair and all the extra emotions of guilt, and shame that men experience in an affair.